Friday, April 29, 2005

Let's see... that means that Fox got more than THREE TIMES what CNN got, and TWICE what CNN and MSNBC got ... C-O-M-B-I-N-E-D!!!And the anti-Fox folks would want you to believe that Fox has built its business by catering to only a segment of the potential audience: angry whte men. FOOEY! You don't the BIGGEST cable news channel by NARROWCASTING!Rather it is CNN and MSNBC who have - with their blatant anti-American/anti-Bush bias - painted themselves into a corner! USA TODAY: "Speaking at a media breakfast last week, Ailes at first said he couldn't think of a single thing that No. 2-rated CNN does better than Fox — except get better press. CNN chief "Jonathan Klein is getting 50 great stories about what they are doing there, one of which is he thinks that there are not enough liberals in the newsroom ... 'need more progressives.' God, I hope he believes that," Ailes said.

(What Klein told PBS' Charlie Rose on March 23 was that a "progressive" cable channel would not appeal to Fox's audience, which he described as "mostly angry white men ... who tend to like to have their points of view reinforced."

Klein continued: "And a, quote-unquote, 'progressive' or 'liberal' network [like CNN] probably couldn't reach the same sort of an audience, because liberals tend to like to sample a lot of opinions," Mr. Klein continues. "They pride themselves on that. And you know, they don't get too worked up about anything. And they're pretty morally relativistic. And so, you know, they allow for a lot of that stuff. You know, Fox is very appealing to people who like to get worked up over things."

The numbers prove that Fox has a MUCH bigger audience, and I say this is because Fox is more appealing to more people and more types of people than CNN and MSNBC COMBINED - just like Bush and the GOP are more appealing to more people than Kerry and the Democrats. Klein is deluded - just like the liberal Democrats are - when he asserts that he and CNN represent mainstream Americans. Fox represents the REAL political mainstream, and not the narrow Left-wing attitudes of Old Media elites.

Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi has met his Indian counterpart in Delhi, with both supporting each other's claim for a permanent UN Security Council seat. Mr Koizumi and Manmohan Singh signed a joint statement with an eight-point agenda for improved relations. Apart from the UN issue, it called for a high-level strategic dialogue and measures to improve economic ties. [...] The joint statement said India and Japan would "strive to develop closer dialogue and collaboration to secure peace, stability and prosperity in Asia". It said the nations' navies would increase cooperation in Asian waters and the countries would hold annual prime minister-level meetings. It also said the nations vowed to bolster bilateral trade, which has been around $4bn a year for several years.

Ties between the two countries have warmed considerably since India's nuclear tests in May 1998, which led to Japanese sanctions on India. The sanctions were lifted in 2001. Since then India has become the largest recipient of development loans from Japan, outranking Indonesia and China.

This is VERY goods news for us - as this helps us counter China and Pakistan. Previous posts on the HUGE strategic value of India (to the USA) versus the undependability of Pakistan and the increasingly hefty hegemony of totalitarian China HERE and HERE.

They show that between 500 BCE to 1800 CE economic growth, and population growth is meager.

And they show that after 1800 CE, world economic growth is clatogenic - EXPLOSIVE, by comparison - nearly doubling every few decades.

This growth in wealth and LIVING STANDARDS occurred even as HUMAN POPULATION SOARED, and as LIFE EXPECTANCIES GREW, TOO.

And still: PER CAPITA GDP and WORLD GROSS GDP SOARED! SO... the POPULATION EXPLOSION did NOT put a HUGE UNBEARABLE BURDEN on the planet, or cause greater POVERTY - NO, QUITE THE OPPOSITE OCCURRED.

WHY IS THIS?

Industrialization. And GLOBALIZATION. In fact, the more industrialized and globalized an economy is... the richer and healthier and longer lived are its citizens.

Therefore, what the Third World needs is more INDUSTRIALIZATION, NOT LESS. More factories and refineries and trade, and MORE GLOBALIZATION. As TOM BARNETT has shown, the countries which are unconnected to the First World are where all the problems are: poverty, disease, tyranny and dangerous domestic social unrest which also threatens their neighbors and their regions.

The Third World needs less attention paid to the failed and ill-conceived ideas and policies of affluent do-gooders on the Upperwestside and their internationalist fellow-travellers in Turtle Bay. The Third World needs to IGNORE the Left's currently favored concepts like "sustainability" "third-way socialism" "welfare" and "green-friendly" if they EVER want to lift themselves out of poverty and ignorance - (just as India and China did when they rejected protectionism and socialism and command economies).

NEED MORE PROOF?! Well, the world was free of industrialization in 500 BCE - YEA: THE ENVIRONMENT WAS "PRISTINE" - and most people died young and poor.

The United States and Italy say they disagree on the conclusions from a joint investigation into the killing of an Italian agent in Iraq by US troops. Nicola Calipari died trying to protect a freed Italian hostage - journalist Giuliana Sgrena - as their car came under US fire near Baghdad airport. US investigators are reported to have found the soldiers "not culpable". [...] The joint statement released on Friday said: "Investigators did not arrive at shared final conclusions even though, after examining jointly the evidence, they did agree on facts, findings and recommendations on numerous issues." [...] The US military said the car in which Mr Calipari and Ms Sgrena were travelling was speeding as it approached a temporary checkpoint and failed to heed warning signals to stop. Ms Sgrena, who was hurt in the shooting, said the car had not been speeding and that there had been no warning before the troops opened fire.

UPDATE - 9:22PM: LGF reports that US Spy Satellite info PROVES Sgrena's car was SPEEDING!"WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US satellite reportedly recorded a checkpoint shooting in Iraq last month, enabling investigators to reconstruct how fast a car carrying a top Italian intelligence official and a freed hostage was traveling when US troops opened fire. The report, which aired Thursday on CBS News, said US investigators concluded from the recording that the car was traveling at a speed of more than 60 miles (96 km) per hour." THERE'S MUCH MORE; GO TO LGF AND RTWT!

As an unembedded freelance journalist in Iraq, I have safely driven through scores of American roadblocks all over this country. I have also spent many hours with U.S. troops as they set up and operate these checkpoints. At the same time, like other reporters here who don't travel with armies of their own -- and like the millions of Iraqis who either have some money or are brave enough to participate in their country's reconstruction -- I live constantly with the fear of being kidnapped.

We see every day the damage done with the millions of dollars that Iraq's Baathist and Wahhabist insurgencies make from that appalling business. So as investigators try to sort out how U.S. troops could have fired on a car carrying newly freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, wounding her and killing the man who secured her release, I'm thinking about how checkpoints save lives. We don't know exactly what happened at the checkpoint on the way to the Baghdad airport. But I've seen how checkpoints work, and the American soldiers who man them are anything but trigger-happy. They know the consequences of making a mistake.

If the uproar over the shooting leads the Americans to further tighten rules of engagement, that will increase the danger to our troops and make commanders on the ground more reluctant to perform these dangerous operations. As a result, more foreigners and Iraqis will be running the risk of being kidnapped or blown up by suicide bombs. Traffic checkpoints are an essential tactic in the disruption of terrorism here in Iraq, since car bombers and kidnappers have to use the roads to conduct their criminal business. Apart from certain fixed locations, such as the entrances to the Green Zone or the Baghdad airport, most checkpoints aren't permanent, and they can be set up almost anywhere, in all sorts of situations.

The details of Sgrena's release and wounding are still in official dispute, but on the street here there's nearly universal certainty that Nicola Calipari, the Italian government agent who died at the checkpoint, bought her freedom with a large ransom. Some Italian officials have intimated as much, though Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told an Italian newspaper that no money changed hands. It's also believed that the Italians ransomed two aid workers last fall. If so, this would mean that the Italian government is giving the terrorists money to conduct more violence even as 2,700 young Italians in uniform are helping rebuild this country.

The word here is that although Calipari had briefed the Americans about his mission, he withheld the details, partly because the Americans disapprove of paying off kidnappers, but more importantly because of the essential factor that foreign media coverage of Iraq usually ignores: the Iraqis. If the Italians paid a ransom, Calipari committed a serious crime in a sovereign state fighting desperately to establish the rule of law and defeat internal terrorism. Long before the Italian incident, orders had come down that deadly force was to be used only as a last resort -- after the failure of obstacles, then flares or smoke bombs or "star clusters," then warning shots, and finally efforts to take out the oncoming vehicle's engine block. These procedures are real. I have seen our soldiers' reluctance to use force and felt the fear it brings. Car bombs cause 30 percent of military casualties.

The checkpoint procedures, which the military calls "fire discipline" and "escalation of force," are designed to prevent soldiers from killing innocent Iraqis who somehow lack the information or common sense to slow down when they approach. Over the period of Sgrena's incarceration, I stood with American troops at various checkpoints between Fallujah and Ramadi in the Sunni heartland of Iraq's Wild West, an area that receives more than 10 times the national average of attacks on American forces. As I finished writing the previous sentence I heard the announcement over the base radio that two members of the combat team I was with had been killed -- by a suicide bomber driving up to a checkpoint. I didn't see that explosion, but I heard it; I had spent much of the day at another U.S. checkpoint not far away.

"Sitting ducks, that's all we are," a 20-year-old combat medic from Texas said to me as we watched Iraqi vehicles thread past the "Alert" sign and through the orange cones and concertina wire of a checkpoint last week. Later, when I asked the sergeant in charge of the platoon if he was enjoying himself, he responded, "Just hanging around waiting to get blown up." This unit has suffered very high casualties, most from car bombs. If any soldiers in Iraq could be expected to be jumpy and trigger-happy, it is the grunts of central Anbar province. But as I watched them run their checkpoint, both before and after the Sgrena incident, they were thoroughly professional.

Driving around this country with Iraqis, including people with quite a lot to hide, I've encountered scores of American checkpoints. Just about everyone knows what to do: You do a slow U-turn and go the other way, you find a route around, or you drive through slowly and wave at the polite 20-year-old from Nashville. In a very small number of cases, one side makes a mistake and something truly tragic happens.

I think that the Calipari shooting was a sad tragedy, and that it was likely the result of Italian secrecy and stupidly speeding at the wrong time in order to maintain that scerecy.

I believe this because this because of the last bit BARTLE BREESE BULL writes - I'll repeat it: "Driving around this country with Iraqis, including people with quite a lot to hide, I've encountered scores of American checkpoints. Just about everyone knows what to do: You do a slow U-turn and go the other way, you find a route around, or you drive through slowly and wave at the polite 20-year-old from Nashville." Calipari did NOT do that.

On the 30th Anniversary of The Fall Of Saigon - a date of rare American failure and dishonor - Stephan J. Morris has penned the MUST READ ARTICLE. (Morris is a fellow at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.)

This article PROVES that VIETNAM WAS A NOBLE WAR WHICH OUR ALLIES WERE WINNING, and that they ONLY LOST WHEN THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS IMMORALLY PULLED THE PLUG ON FINANCING THE South Vietnamese Government and their defense forces.

Thirty years after the fall of Saigon the received wisdom among large sections of Western academia and journalism is little changed. The successive U.S. administrations that intervened in the Vietnam War are widely portrayed as foolish or immoral, while the activist opponents of the war are seen as wise and morally courageous. This simple picture is transposed to the Iraq war by many of today's antiwar generation. Yet the widely held image of the two sides is a crude misrepresentation. The Vietnam War provides few analogies for the Middle East, except as a demonstration of how so many in the West are willing to champion the cause of totalitarian states and movements that the U.S. opposes. [...]

Tragically for the South Vietnamese people, and for the South Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers who had fought so bravely, the Johnson administration's failed policies also generated a cynicism among the American public that imposed severe constraints on the foreign-policy options available to President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Yet, despite the difficult hand they were dealt, Messrs. Nixon and Kissinger did well. Their counterinsurgency policies were sufficiently successful that by 1972 the guerrilla insurgency had been defeated. Moreover, after years of training, the South Vietnamese army became responsible for all ground combat, and was able to defeat a massive North Vietnamese conventional offensive in 1972 with U.S. air and logistical support. The end of the draft and removal of American combat troops from Vietnam drastically reduced public opposition to administration policies. [...]

Lacking mass public support for their goals, but encouraged by weakening of the White House by the emerging Watergate scandal, the antiwar left took their battle from the streets to the corridors of the U.S. Congress. Guided by leaders lobbying in Washington, the small force of some 6,000 antiwar activists in major states, were able to pressure substantial number of congressmen into legislating against the military options available to the U.S. Inflamed with a hatred of American foreign policy, and a romantic infatuation with America's communist enemy, young activists like John Kerry spoke of systematic atrocities being conducted everywhere by U.S. forces, actress Jane Fonda warned of U.S. bombing North Vietnamese dikes to drown hundreds of thousands of civilians, while New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug spoke of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in South Vietnam.

These tales were false and the reverse of reality: systematic atrocities were being conducted by the communists, and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were rotting in the North Vietnamese gulag. But in the radicalized atmosphere of the times, many academics, journalists and congressmen inhabited a fantasy world. Many, like Sen. George McGovern, believed that the South Vietnamese government was the enemy of peace, while the North Vietnamese were merely victimized advocates of peace. Legislation to cut back U.S. aid to South Vietnam soon followed. This took place in a time of world-wide inflation, which meant that the South Vietnamese army that had repelled the Soviet supplied North Vietnamese army in 1972, was in need of more aid not less. But after the massive U.S. aid cutbacks of 1974, the South Vietnamese military could not defend its territory. Defeat in 1975 was thereby ensured. [...]

During the 1980s the cause of Third World totalitarian revolutions was transposed from Vietnam to El Salvador and Nicaragua. The congressional lobbying tactics learned during the Vietnam War were reapplied by the American left, to try to ensure communist victories in Central America. But greater world events conspired to defeat the "Sandalistas." The collapse of the Soviet Union pulled the military and economic rug out from under their friends. Democracy prevailed and the communists lost freely contested elections they wished to avoid. [...]

In the Middle East the task for the Left of finding a political cause to serve has been made more difficult by the weakness of communism and the ostensibly religious nature of so much anti-American politics. Radical Leftists prefer their utopian and messianic totalitarian movements to have a secular cast. Prosperous and democratic Israel today is the main enemy, as it was even before the expansionist settlement movement evolved. That is why the cause of some Palestinian factions has been embraced. But the bottom line for the radical Left everywhere is the undermining of American global power, and undermining rule by America's friends. If local people have to live under repressive movements or regimes as a consequence, such as the Baathists tyrannies in Iraq or Syria, this can always be rationalized or justified.

From such people policy-makers can expect no wisdom on how to pursue the war against Islamic terrorists, nor how to encourage political orders compatible with human freedom. Thirty years after the Left celebrated the American retreat from Southeast Asia, this much is clear.

"... allow people of retirement age the option of continuing to work as long as they want, but tax-free. Since they are working, they would receive no Social Security benefits. Obviously this would not apply to any funds in a private account. Since they weren't going to be paying taxes anyway, there's no negative impact on revenues. Employers gain experienced help at a bargain. Seasoned Citizens get a whopping raise. And even if only a few percent take advantage for a few years, it could go a long way toward offsetting the shortfall. I'm not qualified to analyze the proposal in detail, but it intuits well. So I'm askin' ya: What do you think?

I think it's a GREAT idea. And I wonder: HOW SOON CAN WE LOWER THE RETIREMENT AGE!? Heh.

Seriously: we can EASILY give people over 65 an income tax cut and/or a cut in their FICA. And I think this should be part of any overhaul which includes personal accounts. And, we can MEANS TEST PERSONAL ACCOUNTS, making it most available to lower income workers.

From DISSECTING LEFT, an excerpt from "a letter sent on Thursday to Sally Hunt, the secretary general of the AUT, the UK teachers' union, by Dr. Ottolenghi, The Middle East Centre, St. Antony's College, Oxford Univ.:

"... in addition to a call for boycott [of Israeli schools and scholars], the AUT is ready to offer a waiver to scholars on condition that they publicly state their willingness to conform to the political orthodoxy espoused by the academics who sponsored your motion. Oaths of political loyalty do not belong to academia. They belong to illiberal minds and repressive regimes. Based on this, the AUT's definition of academic freedom is the freedom to agree with its views only. Given the circumstances, I wish to express in no uncertain terms my unconditional and undivided solidarity with both universities and their faculties. I know many people, both at Haifa University and at Bar Ilan University, of different political persuasion and from different walks of life.

The diversity of those faculties reflects the authentic spirit of academia.

The AUT invitation to boycott them betrays that spirit because it advocates a uniformity of views, under pain of boycott.

In solidarity with my colleagues and as a symbolic gesture to defend the spirit of a free academia, I wish to be added to the boycott blacklist. Please include me. I hope that other colleagues of all political persuasions will join me." "

Once again, we are given proof that the Left is statist, elitist, anti-libertarian, and the home of anti-Semitism.

France: According to the BBC, yesterday - "French unemployment has risen to its highest level in five years, increasing concerns about the strength of France's economic growth. The jobless rate in March, as measured according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) method, rose by 0.1% from February to 10.2%. "

Germany: According to the BBC, today - "Germany's six top economic institutes have cut their economic growth forecasts for this year in half. They are now predicting the German economy will grow by just 0.7%, compared with their earlier predictions of 1.5%. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has said the new forecasts are 'not good'."

According to the most recent analysis of last years stats, German may ALREADY be in RECESSION - according to RTE, yesterday: "The German economy, the biggest in the 12-country euro zone, slipped into another shallow recession at the end of last year, new data published by the federal statistics office, Destatis, showed today. According to the revised data, German gross domestic product contracted slightly in both the third and fourth quarters of 2004. Since recession is technically defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the numbers meant that Germany effectively entered into its second very shallow recession in two years."

Meanwhile, across the Channel, in Great Britain - with their SYCOPHANTIC PRO-AMERICAN LAPDOG BLAIR AND THEIR RIGHT-WING, ANGLO-AMERICAN THATCHERITE POLICIES - are doing a LITTLE better - according to BLOOMBERG, today:

Unemployment remains the second lowest in the Group of Seven industrial nations after Japan and interest rates, according to latest figures released by the U.K. government. Unemployment in the three months through February was 4.8 percent, according to the International Labor Organization. That compares with France's 9.8 percent, Germany's 9.7 percent and 5.4 percent in the U.S. in February. [...]

The number of home loans approved by U.K. mortgage lenders in March increased at the fastest pace in seven months, adding to evidence that the 3 trillion-pound housing market may be recovering from a slowdown that began in the second half of 2004. Approvals gained to 91,000 in March from a revised 86,000 in February, the Bank of England said in London today. That's above the six-month average of 84,000. Net mortgage lending grew 7 billion pounds ($13.4 billion) after increasing 7.1 billion pounds in the previous month. ``There's life out there,'' said Geoffrey Dicks, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in London. ``The figures are surprising on the upside. This may not have immediate policy implications but it does take away some of the downside risk.''

Socialism - which is what they got in France and Germany, and what Thatcher GOT RID OF in Great Britian - is an UTTER FAILURE; socialism fails to accomplish what it sets out to. People who maintian allegiance to socialism - in spite of the fact that it has failed EVERYWHERE AND EVERYTIME IT'S BEEN TRIED - are insane.

Free markets and Hayekian/Reaganesque/Thatcherian government and tax policies are better for EVERYONE - including "the workers." THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN THE USA AND IN GB IS HALF OF WHAT IT IS IN FRANCE AND GERMANY!

WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT THE PERFIDIOUS FRENCH AND GERMAN ECONOMIES? Because, it's better for Americans if Continental Europe is GROWING rather than shrinking - we need them as CUSTOMERS.

"... today’s (preliminary) report indicated real GDP growth of 3.1 percent over the first 90 days of the year. I mean, come on. It’s not like 1931 revisited. Plus, to put things into perspective, what, pray tell, was real GDP growth in the first quarter of 1997, when the media used to swoon about the economy nearly every single day? Yep, you guessed it, the very same 3.1 percent. In fact, in between January 1, 1996 and December 31, 1997, and despite the brewing tech/telecom mania, there were three separate quarters in which real GDP growth (annualized) came in at or below last quarter’s 3.1 percent expansion. (See here.)"

But, because Clinton the Leftie was in the White House, the MSM made out like it was A FABULOUS GROWTH RATE. This BLATANT MISCHARACTERIZATION of the FACTS is just another example of the "lying`Leftist hypocritical double-standard BS" I described below, HERE. The Left and the MSM they dominate is effin' PATHETIC.

BOTTOM-LINE: Filibusters are NOT protected by - or even mentioned in the Constitution, and they were once scorned by the Left who now treats them as sacrosanct. The Left cannot get away with their hypocrisy or their lying about this.

They're claiming that it was a PARTISAN effort when it passed the Senate UNANIMOUSLY, and passed the House by 75% and had the support of liberal-lefties like Senator Tom Harkin, columnist Nat Hentoff, and so-called Reverend Jesse Jackson!

BOTTOM-LINE: The efforts by Congress were BI-PARTISAN, and the Left cannot get away with lying about this.

Thank God we have something called the "NEW MEDIA" and thank God it's peopled with bloggers who will NOT let the Left - or the MSM they dominate - get away with their selfish lies, deceits and hypocrisies. (Check all out these links - they're LINK-FILLED!)

UPDATE: I finally know why folks on the Left call themselves "progressives:" THEIR LIES AND HYPOCRISIES GET PROGRESSIVELY BIGGER BADDER AND WORSER!

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans (typified by the organizations MECHA and La Raza) BELIEVE that California - and Texas, if not the whole southwest of the USA - are "rightly" theirs, as if they were somehow "stolen" in the middle of the night by some underhanded act of American trickery. They "proudly" call the territory "Aztlan" as if it was an ancient Mexican nation or Hispano-Mestizo homeland.

As a matter of fact, the American Southwest was not, as MEChA claims, “stolen” from Mexico. Following the Mexican-American War, the government of Mexico legally ceded this territory to the United States (by the Treaty of Guadalupe de Hidalgo, 1848). Nor has there ever been any place called “Aztlan” on American soil, much less a “Nation of Aztlan.” Invented 30 years ago by radical Latino activists, the Nation of Atzlan has more in common with Atlantis than with Israel. [...] MEChA plans for the American Southwest is to be a peaceful one — at least for the time being. By supporting continued high levels of Mexican immigration to the United States, MEChA hopes to achieve by sheer weight of numbers what the U.S. government long ago achieved by force of arms: the re-partition of the American Southwest. To this end, MEChA endorses a cocktail of pro-immigration policies. These include open borders, government benefits (including the right to vote and obtain drivers licenses) for non-citizens, amnesty for illegal aliens, dual citizenship, state recognition of Spanish as an official language, and racial set-asides in education and corporate hiring.

The membership of MECHA includes many prominent Democrat polticians, and the Democat Party panders for the "Aztlan"/Mexican-American vote by supporting policies which aid the accomplishemnt of the "reconquesta" goals.

SO: If you want California and the southwest to remain American and part of America, you'd better stop supporting Democrtas, and start supporting ONLY those politicians who want a HALT to illegal immigration, and who would ONLY a continuance of legal immigration which inlcudes ASSIMILIATION.

Which means it's time for the USA to adopt English as our official/legal language and demand that ALL government agencies and all election ballots ONLY BE AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH. We should DEMAND that Congress re-introduce - AND THAT BUSH SIGN INTO LAW "The English Language Unity Act of 2001" which if enacted, would require "nearly all federal official government business to be conducted in English, and all documents to be printed in English, while protecting individual constitutional rights. Exceptions would include documents to protect public health and safety, law enforcement, court translations and tourism."

If America continues its lax policies - allowing "Immigration without assimilation" then America is committing cultural suicide.We MUSTN'T let Mexicans do to us what Muslims are doing to Holland and France and Europe: conquer it by insidious invasion of their underclass and by the ensuing demographics.

MOST IRONIC PART: the welfare state aids and abets them.

We MUST stop retreating! NOW is the time to get tough, or it will be soon time to surrender. Take your pick.

But on the question of Syria, Mr. Duelfer did not close the books. "ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war," Mr. Duelfer said in a report posted on the CIA's Web site Monday night. He cited some evidence of a transfer. "Whether Syria received military items from Iraq for safekeeping or other reasons has yet to be determined," he said. "There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation."

But Mr. Duelfer said he was unable to complete that aspect of the probe because "the declining security situation limited and finally halted this investigation. The results remain inconclusive, but further investigation may be undertaken when circumstances on the ground improve."

Arguing against a WMD transfer to Syria, Mr. Duelfer said, was the fact that all senior Iraqi detainees involved in Saddam's weapons programs and security "uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that could have been secreted to Syria."

"Nevertheless," the inspector said, "given the insular and compartmented nature of the regime, ISG analysts believed there was enough evidence to merit further investigation."

The Left would like you to believe that the economy benefits from government intervention into the markets and when we have a lower federal debt. And the Left believes that defense spending is wasteful, and that since you cannot have "guns and butter," and because they want the butter - (and today this means federally controlled healthcare and pensions) - the Left wants to repeal Bush tax cuts and reign in our defense spending (BY CUTTING NMD, FOR EXAMPLE) and our military efforts overseas (by withdrawing from IRAQ, for example - which will have cost us about $275 billion dollars by next year, when WE DO withdraw).

THESE ASSERTIONS ARE UTTERLY FALSE.

Government regulatory intervention into the economy - through make-work projects, wage &/or price controls, and intervention onto the markets - doesn't help an economy.

AND: Federal Debt doesn't hurt an economy. Here's proof:

FACT #1: The interventionist/socialist policies of FDR's New Deal DID NOT get us out of The Great Depression, WW2 did. There is ample evidence that FDR's New Deal policies MADE THE DEPRESSION WORSE! Unemployment was higher in 1940 than in 1932! It AVERAGED 17% from 1932 to 1941!

(a) "The New Deal... deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. ... FDR’s federal programs hurt America more than helped it... Social Security actually increased unemployment ... higher taxes undermined good businesses... labor laws threw people out of work."

"The New Deal tripled federal taxes between 1933 and 1940 — excise taxes, personal income taxes, inheritance taxes, corporate income taxes, dividend taxes, and excess profits taxes all went up — and FDR introduced an undistributed profits tax. A number of New Deal laws, including some 700 industrial cartel codes, made it more expensive for employers to hire people, and this fed unemployment." Jim Powell, author of FDR's Folly - How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression

(b) "... without a shadow of a doubt–the New Deal hampered recovery from the contraction, prolonged and added to unemployment, and set the stage for ever more intrusive and costly government. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate.

(e) "There is a critical and often forgotten difference between disaster and tragedy. Disasters happen to us all, no matter what we do. Tragedies are brought upon ourselves by hubris. The Depression of the 1930s would have been a brief disaster if it hadn’t been for the national tragedy of The New Deal." PJ O'Rourke.

Fact #2: By historical standards, the Federal Debt accumulated under Reagan was not great. And during his two terms the economy grew at its best historical rate even as the federal debt grew.

[ASIDE: This is despite the fact that he INHERITED A RECESSION, and INHERITED TWO DISASTEROUS BUBBLES (the telecoms bubble and the internet bubble - bubbles which were allowed to exuberantly grow unchecked by the libertine Clinton, and which burst BEFORE the election), and he INHERITED and HORRIFIC ACCOUNTING SCANDAL. These abuses (like the UN Food for Oil stealing) occurred on Clinton's watch; the abuses were discovered on Bush's watch; the perps are being punished and the rules tightened on Bush's watch.]

FACT#5 - Defense spending increased every year from 1940-1994 - and the economy grew over that period; there were recessions and there was terrible inflation in the 1970's, but overall or economy grew. It grew especially well during the Reagan years when defense spending grew at its fastest rate since WW2, and federal debt increased. IN FACT, federal debt, taxes and defense spending grew almost every year between 1950 and 2000, and it had NO EFFECT on the overall economy - which see-sawed as a result of other factors.

CONCLUSION: The assertions the Left makes that we cannot have guns and butter is false.

The argument that if left unchecked that Bush's tax cuts and defense spending and domestic spending increases are inevitably leading us to an economic disaster is false.

History proves that we can have large deficits and larges increases in the federal debt as a percentage of the GDP without throwing the economy into either a recession or a depression.

Ultimately, the growth of the economy depends on the people - earning, spending, investing and consuming - and NOT the government.

And solutions to the national security crises we face (the GWOT, nuclear weapons in Iran and North Korea, etc.) should NOT be graded by their cost or their effect on the federal debt, but by how effectively they work to make us safer.

Monday, April 25, 2005

I betchya that IRAQ - rife with neojihadist and neobaathist terror and nagged by lingering ethnic divisions (between Sunni Arabs, Sunni Kurdish, Shia and the Turkmen), and trying democracy for the first time ! - gets a new constitution before EUROPE does!

I THINK IT SERVES OLD EUROPE EFFING RIGHT!And I think the failure of the EU constitution would be a VERY GOOD THING. I think that the nations of Old Europe need a Thatcherite/Reagan revolution more than they need another corrupt layer of bureaucratic socialism.Here are excerpts from and links to some articles which discuss the causes and implications of the impending collapse of the EU constitution:

"If all these steps are taken, it will signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq. And it could open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represents all Iraqis -- a government based on respect for human rights, economic liberty, and internationally supervised elections [emph added]. [...] If we meet our responsibilities, if we overcome this danger, we can arrive at a very different future. The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world.

It is therefore SWEETLY AND SUPREMELY IRONIC that those who were so virulently anti-interventionist (and essentially pro-staus quo in 2002 vis a vis Iraq (IOW: pro-Saddam STAYING in power) are having a tougher time of forging a federal constitution than the LIBERATED Iraqis - whom the Old Europe's elites claimed could NEVER do it!

Sunday, April 24, 2005

The only two areas that the Left is tirelessly trying to "block Bush at all costs" are judicial appointments and the UN Ambassadorship.They have pulled out the stops with their filibusters of Bush's judicial nominess and in their smear of Bolton.

WHY ARE THESE TWO AREAS SO DAMN IMPORTANT TO THE LEFT (which currently controls the Democrat Party)?

The judiciary and the UN are two of the last strongholds of Leftism.

If Bush can (a) break the strangle-hold that the Left has on the judiciary - by apppointing solidly conservative judges to the federal bench, and if he can (b) appoint a UN Ambassador who will spearhead MAJOR reform there, THEN Bush can reduce the Left to the minimal margins of the body politic - WHERE THEY BELONG!

The Left knows this and are therefore fighting for their own political existence. With that much at stake, I do not think Bush will retreat - nor will the Dem/Left.

BOTTOM-LINE: Bush ahs the votes to win. If the Dems try to make these issues in 2006, they will LOSE BIGTIME. WHY? because (1) it's a long time from now and most people will forget; and (2) judgeships and the UN are NOT big issues to most Americans - and therefore they defer to the president's perogotive.

If the Democrats were smart - and if they WEREN'T controlled by the Left - then they would make IMMIGRATION REFORM and HOMELAND SECURITY central to their counter-attack to Bush in 2006. These are the two areas are where he's MOST vulnerable, where his support in the center is thin.